Photoshop Creative

Has anybody had success shooting sun stars?

The instructions sound simple and straightforward. One book I have explains why you need a wide angle lens, the shorter the focal length the better, to achieve the light diffraction produced by stopping down to f/22 or so. This book showed one example shot at f/22 with a 15mm lens. The star is "nicely defined" and the underexposed sky still has good detail.


I ain't getting anywhere close. All shots are at f/22 with an 11mm lens. I am not starting to see what I'm going to call a "defined star" until I get to 3 or 4 stops underexposed and at that point most of the sky and surrounding detail is lost.



Is there more to it than short focal length and very high f-stop?

Rusty

Looks like you're on the right track,Rusty. If you have a UV filter in front of your lens, You may experiment with putting a cross of petroleum jelly on it. The light will be diffused some. Also there are star cross filters that can be bought commercially.
Chas

Rusty,

Never tried it, but will give it a go as soon as the sun shines here - not expected for the next day or so, could be as late as Monday.

We haven't had a lot of snow here this year, but not much in the way of sunny days either!

Rusty it may not be what you were looking for but your shots look great.

I have no idea, but... would it matter where you put the sun? In the book example, it is at the edge of the frame. The wide angle will distort at the edges, right? Maybe that would help. I'm just guessing.

Courtney

Yes, Courtney, I wondered about that as well. Those are cropped images; the sun is in upper-left corner. I should probably try getting it closer to the edge to see if that makes a difference.

If anybody intends to try this, here is the narrative:


Rusty

Very interesting, Rusty. Even though the last shots are underexposed, I really like them. Let us know how your experiment works out.

Anita

I usually use a telephoto stopped down to create sunbursts. It also helps to have part of the sun blocked with a fork in the tree or other object.

Rusty,

I noticed in my image "Hotel Avenue" I wasn't looking for a Sun Star, but I did obtain several street light stars. They are created from the lights along the street just in front of the buildings. The lights on the buildings themselves do not show this effect, only the street lights. My kit lens was zoomed back to 20 mm and the exposure was f/14 at 2.5 seconds. Again, I wasn't looking for this effect, but it does add interest to the image.

Have you done any more with trying to get this effect?

http://www.prestophoto.com/photos/image/2278229

I have not yet had the opportunity to try again with the sun. But, I did experience the same star effect on parts of a night shot that you have in your excellent Hotel Avenue shot.

I think the fact that most lights are obviously not as bright as the sun probably has something to do with it.

Your Hotel Avenue image reinforces something I read years ago about night photography. That guides said to always try to incorporate water in the shot because the reflections usually improve the image. Sure did in your shot.

Rusty